A River that Divides. Climate Change Perspectives and Historical Accounts in Southern India

The River Cauvery marks the border between the two southern Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The management of the Cauvery waters and the allocation of the water resources that the two states have to share represents a historically controversial issue, but the controversy was highly worsened by the severe seasons of drought that struck India in 2016. The development of large metropolitan areas in Karnataka has been the cause of a large increase in the state’s water needs, while at the same time the agricultural economy of Tamil Nadu still relies almost entirely on the Cauvery River traditional irrigation systems. The paper explores the ongoing conflictual opposition between the two bordering states in the framework provided by the Climate Change discourse, but actually highlights the contraposition between two different approaches to development strategies and resource management. The paper provides also an account of the recent legal sentences issued by the Water Tribunals in the provisional attempt of regulating the allocation of water. The issue of property of water is then discussed in a juridical perspective, comparing the Indian situation of water scarcity with similar ones occurring in other drought-hit states, as California and Australia.